By nGO
August 7 2006

Yamamoto's race once again ended before the first lap, but Sato was holding his own until half way through the GP where he could not maintain any sort of pace due to a clutch problem and then later lossed a gear. It was thought he may have had to retire from the race, but he fights to the finished in 14th.

Not much to say about Yamamoto except for him creating a new world record for most GP's / least laps on average. He made a clean start in the wet conditions avoiding contact with anybody, but then his race ended before he completed a lap due to his engine stalling.

The new car was promising while the track was wet, at one point Sato developed a 60+ second gap on the Midlands, but deployment of the Safety car negated all that advantage. Disappointingly as the racing line began to dry and improve, instead of going proportionally faster Sato was struggling for pace. The clutch messed up, then he lossed a gear and was wrestling the car to the finish, unable to hold off the four stopping torro Rosso of Speed with a few laps to go. Sato brings up the rear and finishes 14th. Refreshing to see a Super Aguri finish the race, but the problems and race pace at the half way stage today has been something to forget. As the full SA06 package will be released for the next Grand Prix, and having a whole GP distance of data the team should be in a better position when they arrive for the Turkish Grand Prix.

Sato overcomes mechanical problems and the rain to finish 14th “I am happy that we finished a very hard race, not only because of the weather conditions today, but also because of the gearbox problem I had. During the first stage we were looking good and I was actually pulling away from the Midlands, which was very encouraging. But after the pitstop I had a clutch problem and almost lost all drive - at one stage I thought that I would not be able to finish the race. Fortunately I was able to solve the problem by changing the setting from the cockpit, but I later had a gearbox problem and lost a gear which meant that it became incredibly tough to drive the car towards the end. I am pleased that we were able to bring the car home and finish the race as it is very important for the team to have this data before the summer break.”

Promising start to the start of the race for Yamamoto but his engine stalls before the first lap, "The weekend started quite well and I was looking forward to starting the race from the grid. I made a reasonable start off the line and tried to overtake a few cars in front of me at turn one, but the engine stalled and my race was over. It is a very disappointing end to the weekend again for me, but I think that we made good progress with the SA06 here in Hungary. On the positive side, I think that Honda’s win is fantastic and I would like to send my congratulations to them as part of our family.”

Aguri praises team for their performance in these tough conditions, "It was a difficult race in difficult weather conditions. Sakon made a good start and tried an overtaking maneuver at the first corner, but he was too late in braking and unfortunately stalled the car. Taku drove a very good race, especially during the opening laps on the wet tyres. He later suffered a clutch problem and the car became very difficult to drive, however this was then followed by a problem in his gearbox but he managed to keep pushing to finish the race. The team did an extremely good job today, the pitstops were quick and the problems we had remedied, so over all I am happy about that."